Perhaps we should have seen it coming. On the very first night of the Women’s World Cup, there was an upset when host nation New Zealand, the previous owner of exactly zero World Cup wins dating back 32 years, defeated former champ Norway and its collection of stars.
It was seen as less a precursor and more just a really cool story at the time, a nice way to pump up interest in the host nations, and something that could be possibly chalked up to home advantage.
It actually turned out to be the start of a trend that has lit up the tournament and perhaps provided a glimpse into the future of what the biggest events in women’s soccer will look like.
It’s the year of the underdog, y’all, and long may it continue.
For some time, women’s soccer had been a little bit of a closed shop. There were nations that took the women’s game seriously, and some that were still dipping their toes in the water.
Countries like the United States, Germany, Japan, Brazil, the Scandinavian nations, France and a few others, had the kind of resources, depth of quality and program structure to be good, over and over again. The rest of the field — and until this year it was a smaller field of 24, not 32 — couldn’t hope to keep up.
Now, it seems, they can.
Upset fever has gripped the World Cup to such an extent that New Zealand’s opening night heroics have faded into lesser significance. The Kiwis suffered an upset defeat of their own to the Philippines and ended up getting bounced from the tournament.
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Meanwhile, more shocks abounded. Nigeria stunned Australia and left it needing a revival. South Africa nearly surprised Sweden before going down to a last-minute winner, then did shock Italy to claim a place in the round of 16 for the first time.
The United States came within a whisker, or actually the width of the goalpost, of being eliminated by Portugal, despite its rival being in the tournament for the first time and the Americans having never placed worse than third.
Jamaica held both France and Brazil to ties and advanced to the knockout phase, leaving the South Americans devastated in what is the last World Cup for Marta, she of iconic brilliance, but now past her best at 37.
And then came the utter madness of Group H, which started reasonably normally, then lost all semblance of control.
When Germany thrashed Morocco 6-0 on July 24, one team looked like potential a champion and the other plummeted to the bottom of the FOX Sports Women’s World Cup power rankings.
It was unthinkable at that point that Morocco could end up going though to the knockout stage, and that Germany could miss out. But that’s exactly how it happened, capped off by a wild Thursday.
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Morocco sunk previously perfect Colombia and Germany could not break down South Korea, handing Morocco — the first Arab nation to play in the event — a dream outcome that rekindled memories of their men’s team’s incredible run to the semifinals in Qatar last winter.
So what’s with all of these extraordinarily unpredictable results? What can it be? Everyone is getting better, sure, but we didn’t think the playing field had leveled quite as much as this.
“We believed we could do it,” Morocco’s Anissa Lahmari, who scored the crucial goal to beat Colombia and send her team through, told reporters.
“We had a lot of belief,” Jamaica’s Khadija “Bunny” Shaw said, talking of how her team felt when they were paired with France and Brazil.
“We knew,” South Africa coach Desiree Ellis said, after her team beat Italy. “No one gave us a chance, but we knew what we were capable of.”
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And there is part of the difference. For upsets to happen, the gap doesn’t have to narrow entirely. The emerging teams just have to get close enough to have a chance, and most importantly, to believe they have a chance.
When an underdog thinks, “you know what, yes I can,” that’s when magic sometimes happens. That’s when the upsets happen.
Upsets are the lifeblood of big events. The audience gravitates towards superstars, but it absolutely craves being able to fall in love with a plucky underdog.
There’s a lot to love in this tournament so far, as the unexpected, the unforeseen, and the damn unbelievable rips up everything we thought we knew.
Enjoy the spectacle. Enjoy being wrong. Enjoy a new dawn in women’s soccer, where this World Cup is doing what World Cups are supposed to do … surprise us.
